Contents

The novel describes escalating phases of what appears to be an invasion of Earth by aliens, as told through the eyes of Mike Watson, who works for the English Broadcasting Company (EBC) with his wife and co-reporter Phyllis. A major role is also played by Professor Alastair Bocker – more clear-minded and far-sighted about the developing crisis than everybody else, but with the habit of telling brutally unvarnished and unwanted truths.

Mike and Phyllis are witness to several major events of the invasion, which proceeds in a series of drawn-out phases; it in fact takes years before the bulk of humanity even realise that their world has been invaded.

In the first phase, objects from outer space land in the oceans. Mike and Phyllis happen to see five of the "meteors" falling into the sea, from the ship where they are sailing on their honeymoon. Eventually the distribution of the objects' landing points – always at ocean depths, never on land – implies intelligence.

The aliens are speculated to come from a gas giant, and thus can only survive under conditions of extreme pressures in which humans would be instantly crushed. The deepest parts of the oceans are the only parts of Earth in any way useful to them, and they presumably have no need or use for the dry land or even the shallower parts of the seas. Bocker puts forward the theory that the two species could co-exist indefinitely, hardly noticing each other's presence.

Humanity nevertheless feels threatened by this new phenomenon – particularly since the newcomers show signs of intensive work to adapt the ocean deeps to their needs. A British bathysphere is sent down to investigate, and is destroyed by the aliens with the loss of two lives. The British government responds by exploding a nuclear device in the same location.

As it turns out, the aliens have more means of getting at the humans than the other way around; a similar American attempt ends in disaster. Moreover, humanity is not united in the face of the mounting threat – the Cold War between West and East is well under way, with the two sides often suspiciously attributing the effects of the alien attacks to their human opponents, or refusing to co-operate because of their different political ideals.

Phase two of the war starts when ships all over the globe begin to be attacked by unknown weapons and are rapidly sunk, causing havoc to the world economy. Shortly after, the aliens also start "harvesting" the land by sending up biological "sea tanks", which capture humans from coastal settlements, for reasons that are never made clear; the Watsons witness one of these assaults on a Caribbean island. These attacks are eventually met with sufficiently strong retaliation from the various human militaries that "...their percentage of losses mounted and their returns diminished".

And so, in the final phase, the aliens begin melting the polar ice caps, causing sea levels to rise. London and other ports are flooded (the government relocates to Harrogate), causing widespread social and political collapse. The Watsons cover the continuing story for the EBC until the radio (and organised social and political life in general) ceases to exist, whereupon they can only try to survive and escape a flooded London, relocating to a Cornwall holiday cottage which due to the floods now exists on an island in its own right.

At the end, scientists in Japan develop an underwater ultrasonic weapon that kills the aliens. However, the global population has been reduced to between a fifth and an eighth of its pre-invasion level, and the world's climate has been changed permanently.

Up to the end, humans have no clear idea what their opponents looked like. The most they have is some protoplasm which floated to the surface of the sea after the ultrasonic weapon was used.

As stated in the book by the protagonist, the book aims to demonstrate that an alien invasion of Earth could take a very different form from that in The War of The Worlds; publication of the book coincided with the release of 1953 film The War of the Worlds, an adaptation of H. G. Wells' classic work which was both a critical and box office success [1]

The theme of disastrous floods affecting both Britain and the Netherlands, prominent in the book's later part, might have been inspired by the then recent North Sea flood of 1953.

There are two different endings, depending on the book's printed origin:

In US versions, the Watsons are tracked down by Bocker via helicopter, and he explains a great deal of what has happened to the world while Mike and Phyllis have been isolated - even describing the Japanese ultrasonic device in some detail.

In the UK edition they are instead approached by a neighbour in a rowing boat, who gives them only a brief overview of what has happened in the world - excluding much of the detail and just mentioning that the Japanese have developed an ultrasonic device. He tells them that their names have been broadcast on radio, and that a "Council For Reconstruction" has been formed.

The UK edition is less bleak than the US version, implying that humanity has already begun to rebuild, and that civilisation survives - albeit at a lesser level than before.

Groff Conklin, reviewing the American edition, characterised the novel as "sheer melodrama, sure, but melodrama spiced with wit [and] with pungent commentary on human foibles... A truly satisfying shocker."[2] In F&SF, Boucher and McComas selected the novel as one of the best science fiction books of 1953, describing it as "humanly convincing";[3] they praised the novel as "a solid and admirable story of small-scale human reactions to vast terror."[4]P. Schuyler Miller found this novel superior to The Day of the Triffids, citing its "characteristic, deceptive quietness."[5]New York Times reviewer J. Francis McComas similarly noted that while the novel was "somewhat quieter in tone" than Triffids, it would "nevertheless exert an even more lasting effect on the imagination."[6] One newspaper reviewer, however, was less impressed, declaring that "[The novel's pace] is that of a slightly superior snail," indicating that this novel may make the reader impatient.[7]

The novel was adapted by John Keir Cross as a single 90-minute drama for the BBC Home Service, first broadcast on 28 April 1954. It was produced by Peter Watts. An adaptation by John Constable as a single 90-minute drama for BBC Radio 4 was first broadcast on 21 February 1998. It was produced by Susan Roberts, with music by Paul Gargill. This version was released on CD by BBC Audiobooks in 2007.

BBC Radio 7 presented an unabridged reading by Stephen Moore of the novel in sixteen 30-minute episodes, produced by Susan Carson, and broadcast daily between 12 March and 2 April 2004.

On 28 May 2016 BBC Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation by Val McDermid set in the present day, and with some of the action moved from Harrogate to Birmingham, and from Cornwall to Scotland. It starred Paul Higgins as Michael and Tamsin Greig as Phyllis, and featured an appearance by Scotland's First MinisterNicola Sturgeon as herself and was recorded with live accompaniment by the BBC Philharmonic orchestra.[9][10]